After promising earlier this week not to sign any bills more than three pages long, Herman Cain takes a step back toward political reality in a CBS interview:

"It was an exaggeration to drive home a point: I want short bills," he said. "...When they write a bill, I want them to address the particular topic that it is supposed to address. Because as you know, they have this habit in Washington DC of throwing everything including the kitchen sink in there in order to try to get it passed along with something that the other side might want."

Cain vowed to veto bills that included earmarks and said he would demand "clean bills."

"Yes they are going to be longer than three pages," he said. "But they are not going to be 2,700 pages that nobody read."

Cain, formerly a radio host in Georgia, isn't the only 2012 candidate making a transition from punditry, where hyperbole is routine and encouraged, and the campaign world, where it can have real consequences. But he's certainly making the biggest leap.

One Republican reader pointed out yesterday that Cain's pledge to block bills longer than three pages effectively made him the only GOP presidential candidate promising to veto Paul Ryan's budget.